“I am sure that this is a happy day for her, her family and her supporters,” he said.

“As far as I am concerned I suppose one aspect of a long saga, one chapter in a long saga, is closed.”

After nine years behind bars in Bali, Schapelle Corby got her first taste of freedom today — propelled into a massive media frenzy.

With her head down and face hidden by a hat and scarves, the 36-year-old convicted drug smuggler was bundled out of Kerobokan jail and taken for processing at the prosecutor’s office and parole board before being whisked away to the luxury Sentosa Seminyak hotel.

A huge media pack and scores of guards followed her every move — with Corby seen shaking and crying at times amid the chaos.

In a day of high drama, Corby was hustled into a prison van at about 8.20am local time in a matter of seconds. The vehicle then revved away amid a massive media scrum desperate for pictures or a comment.

Prison governor Farid Junaidi said Corby had seemed OK as she left.

“She was fine when she left, only a little anxious and she asked why there were so many people and reporters,” he told journalists outside the jail.

After a short drive, Corby was rushed into the local prosecutor’s office, head still down.

With members of the media literally falling over themselves around her, Corby was ushered into the building and into an office escorted by guards. The doors were then closed.

Guards had earlier been heard yelling “get out, get out, get out” to Corby as media mobbed the van’s door.

“We don’t know if she feel OK or happy or sad, we don’t know,” he said.

Corby was forced to lift the scarves from her face inside his office to be identified.

It was just her, the prosecutor and one corrections person inside the room.

Parole papers ... a passport-style photo of Corby on the official parole papers.Source: Supplied

After 37 minutes inside the office, where she was fingerprinted amid other procedural measures, she was hustled back out and into the van for the journey to the next stop — the corrections office, for further processing.

Their convoy drove the main road from Denpasar to Kuta with about 25 motorbikes surrounding them.

In manic scenes, TV cameramen rode on the back of the bikes trying to shoot pictures through the windows of the vehicles.

Whisked away ... One of the vans that took Corby away to a private resort.Source: Supplied

There were four black vans travelling at slow speed, about 20kph.

The convoy eventually pulled into the Sentosa resort in Seminyak, which boasts 43 private three, four and five-bedroom villas with swimming pools and sundecks set amid lush tropical gardens and lotus ponds.

Inside, each villa boasts an open-plan living and dining area with a fully equipped kitchen, marble bathrooms and air-conditioned bedrooms with flat-screen TVs and internet access.

Luxury ... the Sentosa villa resort where Corby has been taken.Source: Supplied

In the brief glimpses the media got of Corby, she appeared to be wearing a short-sleeved white top with a black garment over it, plus a number of scarves and black pants.

On her head, above the scarves, was a black, white and red checked hat — which effectively shielded her face.

Back in Australia, her mother Rosleigh Rose had whooped with joy and sprayed champagne from the steps of her Queensland home to celebrate the news.

She laughed and shouted with happiness in a brief appearance outside her home at Loganlea, south of Brisbane, after watching the news footage on TV.

“It was just beautiful to see my beautiful Schapelle come out from those doors,” Rose told Channel Seven.

Queenslander Corby was caught at Ngurah Rai airport with 4.2 kilograms of cannabis in a bodyboard bag in late 2004.

Her sentence was reduced to 15 years after she won a clemency plea to Indonesia’s President.

Her parole bid was a complex, months-long process which repeatedly ran into bureaucratic hurdles. The process sped up in the past week when a justice ministry parole board in Jakarta finally heard her case.

Her application included letters of support from the Australian government, as well as her family, the head of the Balinese village where she will live and Kerobokan prison.

She will have to report regularly to authorities in Bali while on parole and while she will be allowed to travel to other parts of Indonesia, it will only be with prior permission from the authorities.

She cannot return to Australia until 2017.

There are now eight other Australians in Kerobokan jail — seven members of the Bali Nine and another man serving 18 years on drugs charges.

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